


in the sweet and same old way

by goingaftercacciato



Category: The Halcyon (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anniversary, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Sharing a Bath, and i have no idea who this lucian d'abberville man that everyone talks about is, and listen...i don't know anything about the halcyon being bombed, but i didn't so...here it is now, i just want these two to have nice things and be safe and happy, perspective really wobbles all over the place in this one sorry :/, probably should have posted this for their anniversary week, so this is basically a 'hey what if everything hadn't immediately gone to shit' fic, toby's not the best at romance but he's certainly trying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:59:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26527102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingaftercacciato/pseuds/goingaftercacciato
Summary: After a long, thankless shift, Toby had thought it might be nice for Adil to simply take a moment to relax, to just stop and be able to breathe for a short while; for them to enjoy each other’s company, to reminisce and bask in the intoxicating familiarity that comes after a year together. It’s not the most elaborate or lavish of anniversary celebrations, granted, but their love has always been a modest one, fed on fastidious devotion and quiet passion rather than extravagant gifts and grand gestures.
Relationships: Toby Hamilton/Adil Joshi
Comments: 23
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> me: *shows up to the fandom three and a half years late with Starbucks and a bundle of old fics*
> 
> Okay, so when I originally wrote this, I intended for it to be just a short, sweet moment of them relaxing together and talking, but then it turned into...Well, way more than that because I'm a hopeless romantic with no sense of self-control. Obviously, there is a second part to this that I have written and may post as a second chapter if anyone actually has an interest in that; we'll see!
> 
> Title from The Platters' "Twilight Time" which is not just the perfect song for this fic but for Toby and Adil in general. (And a bonus point to whoever finds the partial Vampire Weekend lyric I slipped in here.)

The jumbled sound of plummeting water ricochets off the tiled walls, creating a small cacophony as Toby steps back into the bathroom. Before the steaming water can creep up too far towards the rim of the bath, he hurries over and shuts off the spewing tap with a definitive twist; the room drops abruptly back into its usual still silence. Though he hardly needs to, he dips an inquisitive finger in to gauge the temperature and hastily withdraws it with a hiss, his skin left stinging and red. He has a couple of minutes yet; hopefully, the water will be a few degrees below boiling and somewhere nearer to pleasant by that time.

Reknotting the sash of his dressing-gown, Toby pads out of the bathroom, into the buttery lamplight of the bedroom, and…stalls. He’s not entirely sure what to do with himself for the time being. He’s inclined to start in again on a bit of work or tuck into a book, but he’d only be putting it down the second he truly began. But he’s already gone all day without even a glimpse of Adil, and to simply sit around and wait would stretch the unoccupied minutes into unbearable hours.

It’s always difficult, the days like these when Adil arrives for work in the afternoon, long after Toby has trudged off to the office, and Toby has to wait until near midnight, until the fat cats and trite aristocrats have had more than their fill of bourbon, to hold Adil in his arms. With the world growing grimmer by the second, at times, it is only the comfort of Adil’s presence, the distraction and warmth he provides, that keeps Toby pushing forward through the slog. And his absence, well, it has quite the opposite effect.

When things first began between them, Toby had always made due on these days with a visit to the bar when he returned home, able to look if not touch, soothed by the ease of Adil’s conversation and the secret smiles smuggled to him across the bar like priceless diamonds. But—under the stress of his ever more demanding workload and increasingly weighed down by a hungry paranoia that leaves him feeling as if there are eyes all over his skin every time he so much as looks at Adil—these days, Toby has more often been driven away from the bar’s comforts and into the cramped seclusion of his room.

Today, though, the ache of being without Adil has hung in his chest like a swarm of bees, nettling tirelessly at his heart since the moment he had seen the date printed at the top of the paper at breakfast. As a result, he had been all but useless at work, scarcely able to bring his mind to focus on his morbid work all day, too caught up in the heady remembrance of that first clumsy kiss that irrecoverably, beautifully changed his life. His cheeks had been left in a seemingly permanent state of blush, and he’d made six separate errors in typing up his report before he’d managed to get himself moderately under control. But now, alone and at leisure with his thoughts, the ache has become ravenous once more, gnawing upon his ribs and fanning fervent flames in his stomach.

As it is, Toby spends so much time lamenting his predicament that the soft knock comes at his door before he can even decide on a distraction. He hurries over, not in the least bit ashamed to seem as eager as he is, and opens the door with a sigh of relief. Somehow, each time Toby sees him, Adil is even more beautiful than the last, and Toby wants so desperately to pull him in, to wrap him up and kiss him breathless and never again let him go. But in the interest of not spilling a pot of scaldingly hot coffee between them and entirely ruining the evening, he politely steps aside so Adil can slip past.

Careful and agonisingly slow, Adil discards the tray on the coffee table, where it will remain, untouched for the remainder of the night; then, he turns to Toby with a smile like the sun and puts his hands to much better use, cupping Toby’s jaw, his fingers sliding back to tangle in Toby’s hair. The kiss is sweet, unhurried and unassuming, everything Toby has needed, filling him from head to toe with gentle, buzzing bliss.

All too soon, though, Adil pulls back.

“How was work?” He asks, his hands falling to Toby’s shoulders and squeezing softly.

“Dismal, dreary, disheartening.” Toby shrugs, his arms draped around Adil’s waist. “About the standard these days, I’d say. You?”

Adil gives him a weary smile that hides a hint of hunger, and Toby knows he has spent the day plagued by the need of this just as Toby had. “I thought it would never end.”

He loops his arms around Toby’s neck, leaning in for another sugar-sweet kiss, but as he does so, his eyes flick behind Toby, to the bathroom and the full tub; he stills and raises a curious brow.

“Am I interrupting?” He teases.

Despite the touch of anxiety at the back of his throat, Toby unfolds a smile of his own and slides his hands up Adil’s chest until he can thumb at the glossy silk of his pristine bowtie. “Actually…” He gives the bowtie a tug, beginning to untangle it from Adil’s stiff collar. “Seeing as it is our anniversary, I was waiting for you. If you’re interested, that is.”

After a long, thankless shift, Toby had thought it might be nice for Adil to simply take a moment to relax, to just stop and be able to breathe for a short while; for them to enjoy each other’s company, to reminisce and bask in the intoxicating familiarity that comes after a year together. It’s not the most elaborate or lavish of anniversary celebrations, granted, but their love has always been a modest one, fed on fastidious devotion and quiet passion rather than extravagant gifts and grand gestures. And, well, confined as they are and with the world in its current state, there’s not much else Toby has to offer Adil outside of the bed, so a bath it is.

Still, he realises all too late he probably ought to have at least had a nice wine sent up as well.

Adil, though, doesn’t seem to mind the wine’s absence, and he reaches up to card his fingers through Toby’s hair. “My very own Romeo.”

Toby rolls his eyes and just has to kiss the amused smirk off Adil’s stupidly beautiful face. Adil kisses him back eagerly, keen enough to make Toby's knees weak even after all this time, and without bothering to separate, they stumble together towards the bathroom, Adil neatly kicking his shoes off and Toby’s shoulder clipping the door frame as they blindly go.

Toby takes his time stripping Adil out of his uniform, folding each piece with care and setting it aside upon the vanity, and he leaves a liberal trail of kisses across each new inch of skin he reveals. Adil helps as he can, lifting his arms and shifting as Toby prompts him, but for the most part, he simply watches with warm eyes and a heart-stopping smile. When Toby’s finished, Adil pulls him in close and easily unravels the knot of his dressing gown.

Toby responds by weaving his fingers through Adil’s pomade-slick hair, fussing with it until the thick black strands come loose and flop down in Adil’s face, making him look so young and beautiful, so much like home. Adil rolls his eyes at Toby’s grooming, but the gesture is undeniably one of fondness, not genuine irritation, and he gingerly pushes the dressing-gown from Toby’s shoulders; letting the fabric fall to the ground in paisley-puddle, he trails his fingers over Toby’s skin, across his collarbones, down his chest, over his stomach, touching for the sake of touching. Under such tender inspection, Toby marvels at it for the hundredth time: how comfortable he is with Adil, how easy it is to be in his presence, how he doesn’t at all feel the need to hide or shrink.

“Come on, then,” Adil says lightly.

He slips gracefully into the tub, and Toby hurries to follow suit, tucking himself up at the opposite end, his legs pulled in against his chest. He is not an exceptionally tall man by any means, and his bath is normally more than enough to accommodate a man of his size, but with the addition of another body, he finds himself terribly scrunched up at his end of the tub, the tap digging into his back as Adil looks on in charmed bemusement.

“I had thought this would be more romantic,” he admits after a stunted moment, truthfully rather embarrassed.

Romance is not an area that Toby could ever be called an expert in, but he’s been…trying. It seems to come so easy to Adil; he always seems to just _know_ the perfect thing to make Toby’s heart melt, but Toby…Well, he was raised to have the emotional range of a marble sepulchre by a man who regarded displaying even the smallest instance of affection as an unforgivable sign of poor character. Over the last year, Toby has been working to be better, thinking up little things to brighten Adil’s day and finding small ways to show his love, but he’s not mastered the learning curve quite as quickly as he would like and his occasional missteps still feel too much like total failure.

But Adil only chuckles at his pouting frown. “Open your legs.”

As has long-since become his habit, Toby complies without hesitation, and Adil, careful not to slosh the bubbly water, manoeuvres until he is seated between Toby’s legs, his back pressed against Toby’s thin chest. He tips his head back on Toby’s shoulder, and Toby’s arms automatically snake around his waist as their legs tangle beneath the water.

“Better?”

“Much.”

Adil can feel Toby’s smile pressed against his skin as he spends a line of unhurried kisses down his neck, and they sit in silence for a few tranquil moments, savouring the rare peace and quiet, letting the heat burn away the stress of their lives.

“It feels wrong,” Toby says, distant and muted. “Being like this.”

Adil’s heart sinks. Since their relationship began, Toby has come a long way. Of course, after his initial panic, he’d taken to his revelation remarkably well, much as a drowning man might take to a lungful of air—which is to say, better than Adil ever would have expected given the circumstances. From the time it had become clear that he was allowed to, Toby had always been eager to talk, to touch, to kiss, but underlying it all, there had always been a layer of ingrained guilt. As if, despite his happiness, he believed what he was doing was wrong and immoral, and he would, sooner or later, be punished for it; as if they were stealing already-borrowed time. Adil had suspected it had something to do with Toby’s father: some lingering shame of failing to meet his impossible, cruel standards. More recently, though, as the months have passed and they have remained together and the late Lord Hamilton has grown an ever more distant memory, that guilt has begun to ease, slipping off Toby’s shoulders until he seemed to hold Adil without a trace of regret. But given the society they live in, Adil supposes it may be too much to ask that Toby’s shame ever disappear completely.

“Toby…” he says cautiously.

“Hm?” Toby hums absently as his fingers trace whirling patterns on Adil’s stomach. A moment later, he seems to hear the echo of his own words and hurries to correct himself. “ _Oh_. Oh, no, no! I don’t mean--This is perfect, absolutely perfect,” he says, holding Adil tighter and pressing a firm kiss just below his ear. “I only meant--” He pauses, then begins again, quieter. “There are men dying, men as young as you and I being blown to bloody bits in the name of England only a few hundred kilometres away. It doesn’t seem fair, to be here, like this, so far removed from it all, protected by the walls of my father’s money.”

With a quiet sigh of half-relief, Adil settles his hand over Toby’s on his chest, threading their fingers together. “Toby, when the world is tearing itself apart, it is the moments like this that remind us why we bother trying to hold it together.”

Toby chuckles, and Adil can hear his lovely, crooked smile when he says, “Are you certain you’re a barman and not a poet?”

“I think you’ll find we’re one and the same.”

“Or maybe you’re just exceptional.”

“And maybe you,” Adil says, twisting his free arm around to poke Toby in the ribs, “are a shameless flirt, Toby Hamilton.”

“There’s nothing shameless about telling the truth, Adil Joshi.”

Toby kisses the curve of Adil’s shoulder, soft as can be, and falls silent for another long moment, lost somewhere in his thoughts once more. It happens often with Toby; in quiet moments, his mind will drift somewhere else, somewhere far away from their bodies, and linger there like a ghost upon the moors, but Adil knows it will always return when Toby is ready. So he waits patiently, sinking deeper into the water.

“I keep hearing that everything is going to change," Toby says eventually. "That, whichever way it goes, the world is going to be completely unrecognisable by the time this war ends. _If_ it ever ends.”

There’s an odd note dragging through his voice, but even as well-versed as Adil has become in detecting the underlying currents of Toby’s emotions, he can’t quite place it. And that worries him.

“It will end,” he insists.

“It's been two years already, and yet--” Toby knows he shouldn’t say anything. This wasn’t meant to be a time for discussing the wretched state of the world; it was meant to be a momentary respite from the calamity, a quiet piece of the day set aside to revel in their love and how far its come. But he can’t seem to stop the words pouring out of his mouth, can’t stop the gunsmoke clouds from drifting into his head no matter how tightly he holds to Adil. “The reports keep coming every day. Hundreds of soldiers dead, thousands injured, entire towns being bombed to ash without regard for civilian casualties. They’ve taken Estonia, Leningrad is completely surrounded and on the brink of collapse, and they’ve begun firing on American ships now. It’s only getting worse.”

“Sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better,” Adil says.

But Toby doesn’t respond, not even a half-hearted hum in acknowledgement, and Adil can practically feel him slipping further and further away, his mind whirling with all the horrific statistics that land on his desk every day. The dour tension trickles out from Toby’s chest and seeps into Adil’s heart. Because the thing is, as much as he would like to, he can’t say that Toby is wrong. It is getting worse. Much worse. The fear is so constant that it lays like a wet woollen blanket over the city, itchy and suffocating. Though, everyone is careful not to let it show, reading the new, grisly details in the papers with a stiff upper lip and keeping their dogged chins up even as they send their young sons off to die in some miserable, wet field.

Adil swallows down the lump building in his throat and argues, reasonably, “Toby, it can’t sustain itself forever. All things come to an end eventually.”

Apparently, that is the wrong thing to say because Toby frowns against Adil’s shoulder, his arms going slack around Adil’s waist as he seems to flinch ever so slightly.

“Even this?” He asks, quiet and small.

Though it pains Adil to consider it, he knows he and Toby are likely to be particularly impermanent; the world will never be content to let them be together as they want to be; there are a hundred different forces—large and small, loud and silent—that would love nothing more than to drive them apart and condemn them for ever daring to try to be happy. It’s a miracle, really, that they’ve survived this long. But despite the all too real likelihood that they will be ripped from each other someday, the all too real possibility that, though the Blitz has at last come to end, either of them could still be killed in a raid any day, he smiles.

“Unfortunately, yes. Unless you plan to develop a functional cure for mortality.”

Toby laughs, a soft hiccup of breath pressed against Adil’s throat, right over where his pulse flutters in his veins; the tense air about them dissipates as easily as it had arrived, and Adil relaxes against Toby once more.

“Till death do us part, then?” Toby whispers, his lips just barely brushing against Adil’s skin, sending a pleasant shiver through him.

“Of course,” he says simply, because if it weren’t for society’s prejudice and its relentless demands and the grim spectre of death always glaring down upon them, it would be the most obvious thing in the world: him and Toby, for the rest of their lives, growing old and grey together, in love for years, decades, a century. Still, he can’t help but tease Toby a bit. “Did you have something else in mind?”

“No, I didn’t,” Toby admits readily enough to set Adil’s cheeks alight and tip him over just another bit in love. “But I had thought it might be a bit too…presumptuous.”

“More presumptuous than when I kissed you for the first time?” Adil asks. In the moment, Adil had never been more terrified in his life than he had been when Toby had pushed him away and run off. But now, a year removed, he can see the absurd humour in it, how ridiculously impulsive he had been, how out-of-the-blue it must have seemed to Toby.

“Hm, perhaps not quite that much," Toby teases, squeezing Adil’s hand lightly. "But close."

A supple silence falls over them then, broken by no sound but that of their own breathing and the silvery ripple of water as Toby idly strokes his fingers up and down Adil’s arm. Pillowed by the downy peace, the silky heat smooths the last remaining weight of Adil’s twelve-hour shift from his shoulders, and his languid thoughts begin to cloud over as he’s drawn closer and closer to much-needed sleep; like a hapless sailor struck by the call of a siren, he lets his eyes drift closed.

“I would, you know, if I could.”

Toby’s voice cuts through the drowsy fog, and Adil blinks slowly as he struggles to pull his focus back and make sense of Toby’s words.

“You would what?”

“Marry you.”

Adil’s heart stutters in his chest. It is what they’ve been obliquely speaking of, but to hear the actual words said, so plainly, with such certainty: it sends a jolt of awe down his spine. He shifts, turning so that he can look Toby in the eye. The lazy steam has caused his hair, slightly overdue for a cut, to curl up at the ends, and his cheeks are a pleasant pink, though Adil can’t be sure if it’s from the heat or their conversation. But his eyes…his eyes are sincere, soft and warm and earnest. He genuinely _means_ it, and a sudden rush of affection knocks the air right out of Adil’s lungs.

Carefully, he slips his arms around Toby’s waist. “I wish you could,” he whispers, afraid to break the dream around him with the force of his clipped longing. Because even if he knows that in all likelihood it could never last, it would be so beautiful, so precious while it did.

Toby stares back down at him, searching his face for something. Something he must find because after a moment, into the sacred, scant space between them, he whispers back, “I haven’t a ring.”

Adil shakes his head, barely, unable to look away from Toby. “I don’t need one.”

“I’ll buy you one anyhow,” Toby says, a smile slowly blossoming on his face.

Adil’s lips answer Toby’s with a goofy, giddy grin of their own. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. You haven’t even properly asked yet.”

“All right, then. You’ll forgive me if I don’t get down on one knee?”

Adil nods, though it wasn’t ever really a question.

Toby clears his throat politely and takes Adil’s left hand in his own, lifting it out of the water. “Mr. Joshi, you must allow me to tell you how ardently--”

Adil can’t help but giggle at Toby’s exaggerated, stiff formality. “Easy now, Mr. Darcy,” he teases, swatting ineffectively at Toby's chest.

“Hush,” Toby says; he flicks water at Adil like a petulant toddler, but there is a smile peeking out at the corners of his lips. “I’m trying to wax poetic. Now, where was I?” He takes a breath and starts again, sounding far more like himself. “Adil, you mean the world to me. I don’t know where I would be without you. Though--” He shakes his head. “No, that’s not true, that’s not true at all. I know perfectly well where I’d be. I’d be lonely and miserable and lost, as I always was before you came into my life.”

Adil’s throat goes tight at the thick, raw emotion in Toby’s voice, the slight shine of tears building in his eyes as he looks at Adil with such tender care. He wants so badly to kiss him, then, but he doesn’t dare move, doesn’t dare stop the words spilling like honey from Toby’s lips.

“Every day for the last year, since that morning in September,” Toby continues, “I have woken up knowing that I am in fact the luckiest man alive. I cannot believe that you have chosen to love me, and I cannot believe that you’ve allowed me to love you. In the midst of all this horror around us, you have made me happier than I have ever been, happier than I ever thought I could be, and…And you are _all_ I want, and I want you for the rest of my life.” He breaks off for a moment, gathering himself, and Adil wonders if he can feel Adil’s heart thrumming with the downpour of velvet euphoria in his chest. “And if you’ll have me, I want to be yours for the rest of your life. Will you marry me, Adil Joshi?”

“Toby Edward Hamilton,” Adil says, as prim and proper as he can manage through the incandescent happiness that has flooded his entire body, threatening to burst him apart into a shower of tiny pink hearts; he’s never before felt such an overwhelming sense of love, never thought he’d be given the chance to. “I absolutely will.”

Toby scarcely waits for the words to fall off Adil’s lips before he’s kissing them, sweet and needy and full of promise. Adil’s hands come up to thread through Toby’s hair, and Toby’s hands lock onto his waist, hungry and wanting. But as keen as they are, it’s not a sustainable kiss; they’re both grinning like fools, and the angle is all wrong, and the water has gone cold, so they’re forced to break apart far sooner than either of them cares to.

But Toby isn’t content to be parted for more than a handful of moments, and well, neither is Adil, really. Toby ushers him up out of the tub, following close behind, his hands never moving away from Adil’s skin; he doesn’t even spare a moment to pull the plug on the tub. Instead, he hastily wraps them up together in one of the hotel’s fluffy, monogrammed towels, dipping in for a kiss at every chance he gets.

They dry off in a hurry, just a quick pass over to rid themselves of the fat water droplets rolling off them before they tumble into bed. The expensive sheets cling to their still-damp skin, but they hardly notice, caught up in each other and giggling like children. Toby, like a devotee at worship, intertwines his fingers with Adil’s, laying a feather-light kiss on each knuckle and holding their joined hands over his feverish heart.

Despite their eager fumbling, when they make love, it’s gentle and slow and reverent, every touch a prayer of praise and boundless affection. They take their time in a way they’re rarely able to, exploring with no rush and great care, relearning each and every hallow inch of skin as if it is their first time all over again.

There is nothing more Adil wants but to lay with Toby, pressed and tangled into one, until the end of the world, but as the hour tips over to three o’clock, he knows he must go. Reluctantly, he pulls himself from Toby’s sleepy grip, quieting his displeased grumbles with a petal-soft kiss on his forehead. He collects his clothes from the bathroom and slips into them as quiet and quick as possible, but when he returns to the bedroom, Toby is sitting up in the bed, the sheets pooled in his lap and an anxious frown twisting his face. Adil’s heart aches just looking at him.

“You shouldn’t go,” he says as Adil shoves his bowtie into his pocket and takes a seat at the desk to slide on his shoes. “It’s dangerous to be out during the blackout. God knows who else is running about out there in the dark.”

“It’s dangerous for me to stay here, Toby,” Adil points out levelly, tying off his laces in a neat bow. He stands, shrugs into his jacket, not bothering to button it up as he ought to, and makes his way back over to the bed, though he knows he shouldn’t; the temptation to simply lay down beside Toby and never stir again is already far too great. For his own sake as much as Toby’s, he adds, “If someone were to find me here--”

“I know, I know. I just--” Toby shakes his head and reaches out to steal Adil’s hand. “I worry about you,” he says, his voice hushed and strained as he busies himself studying Adil’s palm with great interest. “Every time you leave this room, I…I have to wonder if you’ll ever come back.”

With his free hand, Adil tips Toby’s chin up until he meets Adil’s eyes. “You think I don’t worry about you the same way?” He asks, running his fingers through Toby’s wildly dishevelled hair. With the Blitz ended, it's almost worse: the bombs coming sporadically, without rhyme or reason, weeks of peace abruptly shattered just as they seem destined to last. “The world is what it is, and…we are who we are. There’s no changing that. You know I would give anything to be able to stay here with you, to share your bed and wake up with you in the morning, but I can’t.”

“Yes, of course…” Toby drops his head once more and trails a contemplative fingertip down Adil’s ring finger. “Maybe someday you could, though, if…Well, perhaps we could…find a flat,” he says, a quiet lilt of hope sewn through the words. “Someplace where we could be together and nobody would even think to question it.”

The idea enters Adil’s mind on rose-heeled feet, bringing with it such lovely images and a pleasant warmth; he is entirely enamoured within seconds, able to forget for a moment the low click of their ticking clock. It’s such an utterly charming thought: a home, built and shared between him and Toby, filled up with the mismatched pieces of themselves and sealed away from the violent world.

At Adil’s silence, Toby glances up nervously, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. His anxiety is immediately quelled by the fond smile that sits so beautifully on Adil’s lips, and Adil cards his fingers through Toby’s hair once more.

“I’d like that,” he whispers, leaning down for a lingering kiss.

Toby’s hands curl around the lapels of his jacket and pull him closer, but Adil can’t afford to delay any longer, so he carefully steps back, despite Toby’s mumbled protests.

“I love you,” he says by way of goodbye.

“I love you, too,” Toby echoes a second later.

And though he must have heard a hundred times now, it still makes Adil’s heart flip and fills him with soft, fuzzy joy. Unable to help himself, he leans down and presses one last kiss to Toby’s cheek.

“Get some rest.”

“Be careful.”

At such a late hour, almost all of the guests are asleep and the majority of the staff have been dismissed for the night, so it’s easy enough for Adil to sneak out of Toby’s room and down the back stairs undetected. But getting to his locker and retrieving his civvies poses something of a problem. He’ll have to pass the staff’s lounge to do so, and though it’s unlikely anyone would be in there at this hour, it’s not entirely impossible. And were anyone to see him—nearly three hours after he had purportedly gone home and with his uniform thoroughly rumpled—well, he’d certainly be facing quite a few questions that he wouldn’t be able to answer.

As it is, fortune seems to have taken his side, and the staff lounge is blessedly empty as he tiptoes past. With clumsy efficiency, he strips out of the clothes he only just put back on and wrestles into his own far less stiff clothes. Then, he discreetly buries his uniform in the wash pile and makes his escape.

When Adil steps out, the streets are still and empty under the smothering pitch of the night; he would almost believe that the world had paused for a moment, fallen paralysed, if it weren’t for the late summer breeze—already wielding an autumnal sting—that comes whipping down the alleyway and crawls over his skin. It’s nearly a half-hour walk back to his flat, and at the moment, the idea of spending even a second alone in this stalled, harsh London is almost daunting enough to drive him back inside to huddle the night through on one of the lumpy sofas relegated to the staff.

But he knows Toby is watching, as he always does, with his lights out and his curtain twitched aside, waiting for Adil to appear on the street, slouching towards Paddington. So he shakes off his hesitation and starts on his way, his steps quick and quiet; he sneaks a last glance up at The Halcyon’s imposing façade, but it’s much too dark for him to even hope to be able to find Toby’s window. He pulls his coat tighter about him and hurries on.

Alone in the moonless night, his mind begins, inevitably, to wander. He knows he ought to stay focused, keep his ears pricked for any prowling danger and fix his eyes on the low-hung clouds, but he’s too down-to-the-bone tired and gut-wrenchingly happy to truly make an effort to stop his thoughts from drifting back to Toby and all that happened between them tonight. Out amidst the grey and rubble, it almost seems like a dream, all spun in gold and wrapped in warmth, too sweet to be real. But he can still feel Toby’s touch on his skin, still hear Toby’s words, the adoration that fell so easily from his lips, the smile in his voice as he asked Adil to marry him. Adil could almost swoon merely thinking about it.

When he had considered marriage in the past, it had been with a great deal of trepidation and a hunched sense of obligation. It had never been something he wanted; he had rather liked the idea, the commitment and intimacy and companionship of it, but he had always been soured by imagining himself marrying a woman he couldn’t love the way he ought to. The way he had seen it, there were only two options: to vow himself to a lie for the rest of his life or to spend his life alone, silently bearing the well-meaning concern of his family and the clawing weight of his loneliness. He had never thought that he could find a man and choose to love him in spite of the fear and the laws. He had never thought he could find a man who would want him for more than a night, let alone for a lifetime. But somehow, for now, he has won out against the universe and found more than he ever dared to dream of, even if it is likely to only be temporary.

And even if they can never truly be wed, even if he can’t tell his mother and father or his brother and sister or any of his friends, even if it is a marriage only in their two hearts, Adil doesn’t mind. The idea is intoxicating enough on its own, and he doesn’t need the world to know Toby loves him to know it himself. He’s content to shelter this love, to cradle it between his hands like a stolen piece of the sun, a small miracle just for him to look upon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing fancy, just a short extra bit of fluff.

As much as he had enjoyed lazing in bed this morning, more than making up for his rather late night, Adil is decidedly less pleased that his afternoon shift has again robbed him of the opportunity to see Toby before he marched off to work. 

Over the year that their relationship has stretched, Adil’s needy passion has dimmed somewhat. Of course, it’s not gone entirely but neither is it quite as urgent or desperate as it had been in the beginning. He still _wants_ Toby, but he has settled into a more steady sort of desire, one that is sure in itself and does not need constant attention to survive. But with the sweetness of Toby’s proposal still lingering in his chest, Adil suddenly feels again as he did after their first true kiss: aflame and impatient for more. He’s near to bursting with longing, his thoughts pulled ceaselessly away from his dull work.

It seems a small eternity before the clock hand slips to seven, and Adil hears Feldman’s cheery greeting as Toby steps into the lobby, home from work. His eyes catch on Adil’s only briefly, but long enough to almost crack Adil’s resolve and send him running up the stairs after Toby, consequences be damned. 

As it is, Toby continues on his way, and Adil shakes his head and silently chides himself. He is not a teenager caught in the throes of love for the very first time; he ought not to be so affected as if he were. It’s ridiculous, really, but he can hardly help his heart and the way it leaps.

Though he has thrown himself into his work as thoroughly as he can, it’s another, much longer eternity before his shift draws to an end, and he happily passes his mantle off onto Tom before sneaking up the stairs. His hands shake and his heart jitters with every step that he takes; it may as well be the morning of September 8th, 1940 for all his body seems to be concerned. But this time it is not fear that sets him trembling.

There is scarcely a moment between his knocking and the door opening, and Toby pulls him in with the same fumbling enthusiasm that has taken hold in Adil’s chest. But despite his eagerness, Toby kisses him with such slow, aching tenderness that Adil almost falls to his knees.

Or he might have if Toby had not cut the kiss so woefully short. Leaving Adil unsteady and pressed back against the door, he retreats to the other side of the room without a word and begins rooting through his worn satchel. Adil takes the brief pause to breathe and settle his heart, but it’s all for nought.

Because a moment later, Toby’s back in front of him with a nervous but giddy smile and two simple gold bands pinched between his fingers, held up between them. Adil hadn’t expected Toby to follow through so soon, or maybe even at all, and his heart leaps into his throat.

“I know it’s not much,” Toby says, his cheeks tinged with a shy pink. “I got the best I could afford, but with the gold shortage--” 

Adil reaches out, tucking his fingers under Toby’s waistcoat, and tugs him in for a kiss. He tries his very best to pour every last bit of the heady love he feels for Toby into it, but he’s not sure even that is enough to convey the depth of his current joy and overwhelming affection. 

“It’s perfect, Toby,” he whispers against Toby’s lips. “I love it. I love you.” 

He presses one more chaste kiss to Toby’s lips for good measure and holds his hand up. Gingerly, Toby places one of the rings into his hand, keeping the other for himself. Adil’s fingers curl tight around the delicate golden circle, pressing its blunt edges into his palm. They won’t be able to wear them, not in public unless on a chain and tucked beneath their clothes, but he already itches to know the touch of the metal, the mindful pressure wrapped around his finger.

Toby reaches down and lifts Adil’s left hand.

“Adil Joshi,” he asks with mock solemnity that is entirely impaired by the smile he’s trying to bite back; he poises the ring over Adil’s finger. “Do you take me as your husband?”

“I do,” Adil answers, with unshakable certainty and not a moment of hesitation.

Toby’s smile breaks free, as bright as the sun on a perfect summer day, and he gently pushes the ring onto Adil’s finger; it slides into place as if it were made for Adil, and his heart is sore from the flood of love and unimaginable happiness gushing through it.

Adil blinks back the tears gathering in his eyes and lines up his ring to fit over Toby’s finger. It’s only then that he notices Toby has taken his signet off, and his breath stumbles in his chest. He’s never seen Toby without it, not once in the five years that he’s known him; that symbol of his family and their legacy, the burden of his father, has always been stuck fast on him, stark against his pale skin. And now it's to be traded, to be replaced by the soft gold embrace of his love for Adil.

He meets Toby’s warm eyes, and when he can bring himself to speak, his voice shakes slightly under the welcome weight of his emotion. “Toby Edward Hamilton,” he whispers, savouring the sound of Toby’s name on his tongue just as he did all those months ago on the morning his life changed. “Do you take me as your husband?”

“I do,” Toby promises. He closes his eyes and leans forward, pressing his forehead to Adil’s. “With everything I am, I do.”

Adil slips the ring down Toby’s finger. 

They have no jai mala to exchange, no agni burning for them, no sashes to bind them together for their saptapadi, but still, Adil curls his fingers around Toby’s and draws him forward. Toby follows without question. 

His steps slow and measured, Adil leads them through the saat phere, first in Hindi—the long-missed sounds returning to him like the tide returns to the shore—then in English.

_Let us vow to nourish each other._

_Let us vow to grow together in strength._

_Let us vow to be wealthy together._

_Let us vow to share our joys and our sorrows._

_Let us vow to care for those we love._

_Let us vow to be together forever._

_Let us vow to be friends, lifelong._

When the seventh circle is complete and Adil comes to a stop, Toby takes both of Adil’s hands in his own, his eyes shining with something like awe; palm pressed to palm, he smoothly threads their fingers together and pulls Adil close. He marvels at the cool touch of Adil’s ring as it rests between their fingers, gradually growing warm with the shared heat of their skin.

Adil pushes up to meet him, sealing their vows in a rosy kiss that sends Toby’s head spinning just as much as their first did. He can scarcely believe his luck. His husband, Adil Joshi is his husband. Perhaps not by law, but in every sense that matters, they are married, committed to each other for as long as they shall live.

“And till death do us part,” he whispers.


End file.
